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by choomchoom



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 09:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20172145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choomchoom/pseuds/choomchoom
Summary: Nautica tells Chromia and Windblade that she wants to join the Lost Light. She introduces the topic by reminding them that there are lots of good engineers on Cybertron, so they don’t necessarily need her anymore...Windblade misinterprets and gently asks Nautica if she wants to go home. Nautica just laughs.





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Nautica-centric gen for the soul!

Nautica squared her shoulders and straightened her posture before knocking on the doorframe. There was no reason to be nervous, she told herself. Windblade was _barely _in charge - it wasn’t like she could forbid Nautica from going. Nautica knew what she wanted and had made up her mind. She had to clench her fist to stop her fingers from trembling anyway.

Windblade looked up from where she had been bent over a terminal. Chromia was there too, like Nautica had expected. As far as Nautica could tell, Chromia hadn’t left Windblade’s side since they’d returned Metroplex to Cybertron.

“Hi,” Windblade said, her face relaxing into an easy smile.

“Hi,” Nautica replied, stepping further into the room. The three of them hadn’t spent much time in Metroplex’s processor chamber early on, but there had been a few weeks after getting to Cybertron where the three of them had been here around the clock, scrubbing down neglected equipment, rewiring busted circuits, and reconstructing as much as they could of the interface that Metroplex and Windblade were now using to communicate. In here, Nautica could almost forget the reason for her nervousness. “How is he?”

“Recovering,” Windblade said. It sounded like a stock answer, but Nautica knew that it was also a true one.

“That’s good.” Nautica took another step into the room, clasping her hands together in front of her. “His self-repair is still improving?”

“Every day.” Windblade and Chromia were both looking at Nautica now, curiosity and concern in Windblade’s optics and keen questioning in Chromia’s.

“So my job here’s pretty much done.”

“Nonsense, Nautica, he’ll still need –”

“Maintenance, right? There are thousands of people here who can do what he needs.”

Windblade took her hands off the terminal and turned to face Nautica fully. “What’s going on, Nautica? Do you want to go home?”

Nautica couldn’t help but laugh at that. Windblade gently, nonjudgmentally guessing Nautica’s intentions so wrong was enough to break all the tension. Go _home_? The thought had never even crossed her mind. Why in all of creation would she want to go home? “I want to join the Lost Light,” the said when the giggles had mostly subsided.

Windblade blinked and then smiled. Chromia stepped over to throw an arm around Nautica’s shoulders. “From what I hear, you’re going to have the craziest stories.”

* * *

Windblade and Chromia had both come to the launch site, and Nautica felt a bit bad for feeling so pleasantly surprised to see them. Of course they had come. The three of them were a team, and they supported each other. And Nautica liked to think that after all this time, they were also friends.

She was going to miss them, she realized as Chromia waved to her, she and Windblade still making their way across the field. More than she missed Caminus, more than she missed Firestar. She was going to miss their exhausted late-night talks, their inside jokes, all the strange rituals they’d developed to make the time the three of them had spent alone repairing Metroplex a little less grueling. Chromia’s snark, Windblade’s decisiveness.

For the first time, she let herself wonder if maybe they were going to miss her too.

Chromia had a smile on her face as she pulled Nautica into a crushing hug, and Windblade threw her arms around both of them before they made room for her properly. “I’m going to miss you ,” Nautica said quietly into both of their audials.

Impossibly, Chromia’s arm tightened around her. “Be safe,” Windblade said.

“But not too safe,” Chromia stage-whispered in Nautica’s direction.

Nautica had to laugh at the intensity of the scathing look Windblade turned on Chromia at that, and the laughter helped her force down the emotion that was threatening to cloud her optics. She didn’t want to miss a moment of this.

One more quick hug from each of them and it was time to go. She turned around as she was about to step into the belly of the ship to see that Windblade and Chromia were still there, waving at her when they caught her optics.

Nautica waved back and entered the ship already grinning.

* * *

Seeing Firestar again, dancing with Skids, and figuring out the cause of Thunderclash’s mysterious illness had made for a heck of a long day already, and by the time Velocity announced that she was joining the Lost Light crew, Nautica had nothing but exhausted acceptance left to feel about it. The next morning, after getting some solid recharge and some emotional distance from the events of the day before, Nautica could barely stop herself from running to the Medibay, hoping that her friend would be there so that she could greet her properly.

Lotty was standing outside the Medibay when Nautica turned the last corner. She turned toward her and then Nautica couldn’t stop herself from running, saw no need to keep herself from flinging her frame into Lotty’s in a smothering hug.

Lotty was laughing as she swung Nautica around, eventually setting Nautica back down on the ground. “_Hi_,” Nautica said into Lotty’s shoulder. “Yesterday was so weird and I didn’t even see you until after all of that nonsense and I don’t know if I made it clear enough that I am _immeasurably _glad that you’re here.”

“I’m getting that impression now, yes,” Velocity said. Nautica could hear her smile in her voice, and just to be safe, Nautica hugged her one more time.

* * *

“Perception check!”

“Nightbeat, if you need to do a perception check, I’ll _tell you _to do a perception check.”

“Why do you need to do a check? The dragon is _right in front of us_.” Brainstorm gestured at Nautica, then seemed to remember that the dragon was, in fact, imaginary, and retracted his hands.

“I want to roll a perception check before we go into initiative! Just in case. It’s called _strategy_.”

Nautica sighed. “You can do a perception check,” she said, because she suspected that there was no possible other way this argument would end.

“_Thank you…_I rolled a five.”

“There’s a dragon in front of you.”

Nightbeat groaned. “Roll initiative,” Nautica finally managed to say.

An hour later, the dragon was defeated and the conference room that they’d appropriated to play in was nearly empty. Most of the party had left already – Lotty had a shift in the Medibay, Brainstorm had had a science idea halfway through the session and Nautica was surprised that he’d managed to even sit through the rest of it, Rung had a patient soon, and Nightbeat had followed him out, deep in conversation.

Skids was still there, helping Nautica clean up from the game.

“What’s the smile for?” he asked.

Nautica straightened out her expression, having been caught grinning dopily down at a piece of scrap paper where Nightbeat had scribbled all sorts of wild speculations about her campaign. Then she realized that Skids hadn’t been teasing – he’d meant what he said.

“I was just thinking,” Nautica started, sweeping the last remnants of the game into a bag. “When I told Windblade and Chromia that I was leaving Cybertron, Windblade asked if I was going home.” Nautica met Skids’ optics and smiled again. “Turns out, I gave her the wrong answer.” 


End file.
